Last and First Men Add a review

Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future is a "future history" science fiction novel written in 1930 by the British author Olaf Stapledon. A work of unprecedented scale in the genre, it describes the history of humanity from the present onwards across two billion years and eighteen distinct human species, of which our own is the first. The book employs a narrative conceit that, under subtle inspiration, the novelist has unknowingly been dictated a channelled text from the last human species.

Stapledon's conception of history follows a repetitive cycle with many varied civilisations rising from and descending back into savagery over millions of years, as the later civilisations rise to far greater heights than the first. The book anticipates the science of genetic engineering, and is an early example of the fictional supermind: a consciousness comprising many telepathically linked individuals.

In the novel, a series of devastating European wars in the 21st century result in the United States and China being the last remaining superpowers on planet Earth. This eventually leads to a Sino-American war which ends with the creation of a first World State. In the 26th century, individual religions go extinct. All human religions and secular science consolidate into the worship of the Aristotelian Prime Mover (Latin: primum movens). A few thousands years later, the depletion of Earth's supply of fossil fuels causes a civilizational collapse.

In 1932, Stapledon followed Last and First Men with the far less acclaimed Last Men in London. Another Stapledon novel, Star Maker (1937), could also be considered a sequel to Last and First Men (mentioning briefly man's evolution on Neptune), but is even more ambitious in scope, being a history of the entire universe. It is the 11th title in the SF Masterworks series.